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Sunday, 3 March 2013

Formula 1 Betting Markets: Part 4 - Top Ten Finish

The 'Break Even' odds for each driver in the Top Ten Finish market

Over the last few weeks I've analysed the odds you would need to break even in the Winning Driver, Podium Finish and Top Six markets if you were to place a bet on a specific driver at every race of the season.

On each occasion I used the number of race wins, podiums and top six finishes respectively to calculate the 'break even point' for the odds in each market. By this I mean if you were to place a bet on a driver at every Grand Prix of the season, the odds at which the driver would have to be priced at every race to ensure you broke even over the course of the season.

Overall, the winning driver market was quite a tricky one to find value from the odds and of the three markets featured so far, possibly some of the best bets have been Fernando Alonso in the podium market and Felipe Massa, Kimi Raikkonen and Kamui Kobayashi in the Top Six market. However, with Kimi and Felipe in particular their top six consistency fluctuated throughout the year and so the key was to spot the trend early in the periods when they were achieving top six consistency.

Anyway, last up is the 'break even odds' for top ten finishes...

Driver

Top Tens

Break Even Odds

Kimi Raikkonen

19

1.05

Fernando Alonso

18

1.11

Sebastian Vettel

17

1.18

Mark Webber

15

1.33

Jenson Button

14

1.43

Lewis Hamilton

14

1.43

Felipe Massa

14

1.43

Nico Hulkenberg

11

1.82

Bruno Senna

10

2.00

Nico Rosberg

10

2.00

Romain Grosjean

10

2.00

Kamui Kobayashi

9

2.22

Paul Di Resta

9

2.22

Michael Schumacher

8

2.50

Sergio Perez

7

2.86

Daniel Ricciardo

6

3.33

Pastor Maldonado

5

4.00

Jean-Eric Vergne

4

5.00

Kimi Raikkonen was the master of consistency in this market, only failing to finish in the points at the Chinese Grand Prix, so despite the understandably short odds on offer, if you'd backed him for a points finish at every race you'd have come out in profit.

Other drivers worth backing throughout the season for a top ten finish included Bruno Senna and Daniel Ricciardo. Bruno had a knack for consistently bringing his car home in the lower places of the top ten and it was perhaps this low points scoring consistency which avoided bringing him to the attention of the bookies and thus ensured that his odds remained reasonably generous throughout the season.

Five of Daniel Ricciardo's six points scoring finishes came during a run of seven Grand Prix late in the season, and for a few races at least the bookies were still pricing him based on his early season form, so his odds remained generous well into his late run of form.

Obviously though, as already mentioned in previous weeks, due to the changing driver market, varying driver form and variations in the speed and reliability of certain cars from season to season, the above statistics won't really be of much relevance to the 2013 season. What they do show though, is that firstly perhaps the Winning Driver market isn't always the best market to bet on. And secondly, there's money to be made in some of the other markets if you can spot a trend in the form of a consistent but unspectacular driver.

The main conclusion I would make is that from the point of view of making a profit, the Podium, Top Six and Top Ten markets are probably less of a risk than the Winning Driver market. However, they're also not as much fun! Formula 1 betting isn't just about making money, and whatever the statistics say about the most profitable market to bet on, from a personal point of view I always like to have a bet on who will win the Grand Prix.

After all, as I said at the very start of this run of posts, for the drivers, the only statistic that really matters is who crosses the finish line first.

Anyway, the Australian Grand Prix is now only two weeks away, so let' see what 2013 brings. A couple of months ago I took a look at the early odds for the formula 1 driver's championship, and so next week I'll take a look at the odds once again to see how much things have changed since the market first opened.